Hi folks. Next question I have for the pros is will System 7 work on my newly acquired 7100/80? I picked it up at the flea market for a steal...and would like to try 7 on this machine. I had originally wanted to put it on my 8500, but I was able to have OS 9.1 on one drive, and OS X on another. But, the 7100 is the perfect candidate: 136 MB of RAM (MAX for this machine) and a nice 700 MB HDD. Any ideas guys?

Hi folks. Next question I have for the pros is will System 7 work on my newly acquired 7100/80? I picked it up at the flea market for a steal...and would like to try 7 on this machine. I had originally wanted to put it on my 8500, but I was able to have OS 9.1 on one drive, and OS X on another. But, the 7100 is the perfect candidate: 136 MB of RAM (MAX for this machine) and a nice 700 MB HDD. Any ideas guys?
JM

Your newly acquired 7100/80 is an ideal candidate for using System 7.6.1. The guides and software lists availble from the front page of the System7Today site will help you turn a 7100/80 into a solid running and productive machine.

Help is always available in the software and hardware areas of these forums. You will find a lot of expertise here. Welcome and enjoy yourself.

OK....without trying to be stupid, I was experimenting last night (it's the only way as a technician that I learn). I saw that 7.5 requires something in the order of 19+ disks to load. So...not having THAT MANY floppies anymore, I attempted to run/install 7.0.1. Curiously, it said that my machine wouldn't do it. OK...this is contrary to a Windows environment (obviously!) where newer machines typically run older software better. It was both interesting and confounding. Is this due to the levels of software including support for each subsequent machine? According to Wikipedia, 7.1.2 was the OS "made" for the 7100. Does anyone have any additional input on this matter, so that I might learn more about OS releases vs. different machines?

Yes, Macs cannot run any version of the Mac OS previous to the one that was current when the machine first shipped. This still applies today.

So, for example, the PowerBook 1400 shipped with some flavor of 7.5.x. It was still in production well into the Mac OS 8 days. If you bought one then, you could replace Mac OS 8 with Mac OS 7.6.1 if you wanted to, or 7.5.5, but not 7.1.

Actually you don't need 19 floppies for 7.5.3.
You just have to copy all the images onto your Mac, doubleclick the first one, and it will mount a System 7.5.3 CD-Install.
So I suggest, you boot your PM 7100 via your Mac OS 8-CD , copy all the disk images of OS 7.5.3 to your hard disk (you can do that, if you don't have more, with one single floppy), run the first disk image and then install the OS. Let us know, if you were successfull!

I suggest, you better get you a copy of Mac OS 7.6 since 7.5.3 is pretty unstable (especially with Internet).
Demyan